Cherries Waffles Tennis or Amanda Miranda Panda: Who Will Win the 2015 Name of the Year Award?

The first winner of the Name of the Year award was Hector Camacho, a boxer from Spanish Harlem “who lived dangerously,” according to the headline of his obituary in the New York Times, and “variously entered the ring in a diaper, a Roman gladiator’s outfit, a dress, an American Indian costume complete with headdress, a loincloth and a black fox fur robe with his nickname, Macho, stitched across the back in whitemink.”

His name was posted on the door of a dorm room at an Ivy League school in 1983, and a group of sophomores decided that this musical arrangement of syllables was the best name of about a dozen that they assembled from newspaper stories and other reputed sources of propernouns.

More than 30 years later, those students, now grown up, are still choosing their favorite name every year but Macho’s moniker — if not his life — seems pretty tame compared to those the Internet has managed to unearth. Name of the Year conceded that Camacho “wouldn’t merit a second glance in today’s competitive naming environment” on its website, which has hosted the now-beloved March Madness bracket since2007.

Every year, a few of those original judges go to Walker’s in Tribeca, armed with about 200 names that they discovered among the hundreds of email submissions the group receives throughout the year — often from people who wish to nominate themselves. The only test each name had to pass — besides being amusing — was that it appeared in a newspaper, a court document, or a local news broadcast — anything that would prove the name’s veracity, if not explain its existence. The gang reads each of the names aloud at the bar while watching a basketball game, and sets aside the 64 that made them laugh hardest — sometimes after brief consultation with the waitress, if she happens to be the same one they’ve had most years. Then, the names are seeded and posted online, and the internet and the original crew — or the High Committee — pick thebest.

Last year, Shamus Beaglehole won the top prize; you can read about it on his dad’s Wikipedia page. The year before that, Leo Moses Spornstarr won. In 2008, Destiny Frankenstein, a University of Kansas softball player, mounted a campaign to make sure everyone she knew voted. The “High Committee” rewarded her efforts; “the people” chose SpacemanAfrica.

“A great name is in the eye of the beholder,” says an East Coast writer who has helped run Name of the Year since 1983 — and would like to remain anonymous because he’s made it this far without being found out. He explains his theory of great names, which he has had decades torefine.

“A great name can be so many things. A great name can be terrific first names paired with hilarious surnames; they can be pedestrian names and one outrageous name; they can be names that pair geographic locations — L.A. St. Louis was name of the year once, Paris London was a nominee — they can be absurd names; they can refer to historical characters or people in popculture.”

And yes, he does have a favorite name of all time: 1992 Name of the Year winner Assumption Bulltron. “It’s a real-word first name, combined with a seemingly made-up last name. Put them together,” he says, “and there’s something wonderful aboutit.”

Not all the winners are as tickled by the honor as those who vote for it, and plenty of people have called Name of the Year offensive for the names it chooses to elevate.Sometimes contestants ask organizers to remove their names, and they do. “We do not aim to offend anyone,” says the anonymous compiler. “We don’t aim to make fun of anyone; we’re just sort of intrigued by the way people name themselves or theirchildren.”

1993 Name of the Year winner Crescent Dragonwagon says that she wasn’t sure how to feel. “I don’t know if I thought of it as an honor,” the Vermont-based cookbook and children’s book author says, laughing. “I thought of it as a ‘will you never be done with the mistake you made when you were 16.’” Dragonwagon — her friends call her Dragon — explains the story behind the name on her blog; she wrote it down because she was sick of telling it. It was the ‘60s, she was getting married to a man that thought no woman should change their last name, so they decided to come up with a new one. After much debate, they landed onDragonwagon.

“But I will say it’s a great children’s book name,” she writes of her creation myth. “Kids love saying it. Plus, I enjoy seeing how various mailing-list computers maim it. For instance, I’ve gotten letters from credit-card companies and charities beginning, ‘Dear Mr. Wagon,’ and solicitations addressed to Dr. Agonwagon. I’m just so tired of being asked about it, or being typecast as ‘Enh, took too much acid in the’60s.’”

The popularity of the original Name of the Year bracket has spawned an endless number of imitations and much media coverage (Deadspin hosted the bracket last year). In 2013, two recent Northwestern grads started their own Name of the Year bracket and were asked to join forces with the original Name of the Year crew. They are now part of the judging committee that gathers atWalker’s.

This year’s winner is still being decided, so it’s unclear whether Reverend Pierbattista Pizzaballa will make the final four, or if Understanding Bush will bring the title home to Brooklyn. Some names have already fallen. Pleasant Crump, the last verified Confederate veteran (you can win Name of the Year posthumously), has vanquished former Arkansas reporter Sunshine Crump, and Florida woman Cherries Waffles Tennis beat Dent McSkimming, “the only American sportswriter to attend the 1950 WorldCup.”

CUNY video editor Beethoven Bong, who just beat Bloomberg reporter Zeke Faux on Thursday with nearly 91 percent of the vote, had no idea what I was talking about when I emailed him about his placement on the bracket. “I’ve googled my name before and have seen small threads about how it might be a pen name and not my actual name. I got a kick out of that, but this might topit.”

Faux hadn’t heard of it either and would like everyone to that his last name is pronounced “Fox.” “I have no idea how I got on there,” he writes, “but my dad is going to bepsyched.”

There is one repository of strange names that Name of the Year will never mine: those bestowed upon celebrity children. Would North West best Montana politician Forrestina “Frosty” Calf Boss Ribs? Would Kal-El Coppola Cage be considered a better name than Amanda Miranda Panda, who was arrested for shoplifting in Boise last year? The guy running Name of the Year would argue they wouldn’t, because they’ve become so familiar as to take away all thefun.

An Apple Martin, like a Hector Comacho, has lost the ability to surprise us. Someday, more recent winners — like 2007’s Vanilla Dong — might recede into the same pedestrian backdrop of proper nounstoo.

“It takes some of the thrill away from discovering it,” he says of well-known oddities. “Half of the fun of Name of the Year is that first moment when you read a name, and Shamus Beaglehole is staring back at you from the screen. That moment of pure joy at learning that someone in the world has this name, and is outthere.”

After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, uses an unofficial online messaging service for official White House business, including with foreign contacts, his lawyer told the House Oversight Committee late last year.

The lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said he was not aware if Mr. Kushner had communicated classified information on the service, WhatsApp, and said that because he took screenshots of the communications and sent them to his official White House account or the National Security Council, his client was not in violation of federal records laws.

In a letter disclosing the information, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee said that he was investigating possible violations of the Presidential Records Act by members of the Trump administration, including Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump. He accused the White House of stonewalling his committee on information it had requested for months.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to stop disparaging the late Sen. John McCain, calling the Vietnam war hero “a dear friend” and defending him against the president’s criticisms. …

Ernst’s remarks came during a town hall meeting at a high school in Adel, Iowa, where several attendees voiced anger about Trump’s attacks about McCain. One attendee described McCain as a “genuine war hero” and called Trump’s comments about McCain “cowardly.”

“I do not appreciate his tweets,” Ernst said, when pressed by the attendee why she didn’t previously speak out more forcefully. “John McCain is a dear friend of mine. So, no I don’t agree with President Trump and he does need to stop.”

As we anticipate the end of Mueller, signs of a wind-down:-SCO prosecutors bringing family into the office for visits-Staff carrying out boxes-Manafort sentenced, top prosecutor leaving-office of 16 attys down to 10-DC US Atty stepping up in cases-grand jury not seen in 2mo

For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.

Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations.

Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them. Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again.

… Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.

Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy.

Attorneys for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and more than a dozen other defendants charged in a Florida prostitution sting filed a motion to stop the public release of surveillance videos and other evidence taken by police.

Attorneys filed the motion Wednesday in Palm Beach County court. The State of Florida does not agree with the request, according to the filing.

In the motion, the attorneys asked the court to grant a protective order to safeguard the confidentiality of the materials seized from the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, and “in particular the videos, until further order of the court.”

Two years in, White House aides are dismayed to discover the president likes lobbing pointless, nasty attacks at people like George Conway and John McCain

But the saga has left even White House aides accustomed to a president who bucks convention feeling uncomfortable. While the controversies may have pushed aside some bad news, they also trampled on Trump’s Wednesday visit to an army tank manufacturing plant in swing state Ohio.

“For the most part, most people internally don’t want to touch this with a 10-foot pole,” said one former senior White House official. A current senior White House official said White House aides are making an effort “not to discuss it in polite company.” Another current White House official bemoaned the tawdry distraction. “It does not appear to be a great use of our time to talk about George Conway or dead John McCain. … Why are we doing this?

When Mr. Trump was running for president, he promised to personally stop American companies from shutting down factories and moving plants abroad, warning that he would punish them with public backlash and higher taxes. Many companies scrambled to respond to his Twitter attacks, announcing jobs and investments in the United States — several of which never materialized.

But despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to compel companies to build and hire, they appear to be increasingly prioritizing their balance sheets over political backlash.

“I don’t think there’s as much fear,” said Gene Grabowski, who specializes in crisis communications for the public relations firm Kglobal. “At first it was a shock to the system, but now we’ve all adjusted. We take it in stride, and I think that’s what the business community is doing.”

There’s no specific stipulation that Milo must be heard, so it could be worse

President Trump is expected to issue an executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to tie research and education grants made to colleges and universities to more aggressive enforcement of the First Amendment, according to a draft of the order viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The order instructs agencies including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and Defense to ensure that public educational institutions comply with the First Amendment, and that private institutions live up to their own stated free-speech standards.

The order falls short of what some university officials feared would be more sweeping or specific measures; it doesn’t prescribe any specific penalty that would result in schools losing research or other education grants as a result of specific policies.